FOUR YEARS after his bone cancer went into remission, Carlos Garcia, 25, began signing up for the Austin Livestrong Challenge, annual charity rides benefiting the nonprofit started by Lance Armstrong in 1997 to boost survivorship of people battling cancer via education, assistance and inspiration.

Garcia rode 10 miles one year, and 90 miles the next—with a prosthetic leg.

Today, he says his yellow Livestrong bracelet, which he's never taken off, gave him faith and helped him get through his training and two years of treatment. "Everybody has their opinion on the allegations," he says. "But that has nothing to do with Livestrong.

"The foundation is not about Lance Armstrong. It's about 28 million people fighting this disease and doing everything they can to raise money and awareness, and I don't tie them together."

The allegations have certainly harmed Armstrong's popularity with the general public, says Harry Shafer, executive vice president of Q Scores, which rates the public perception of celebrities.

According to Shafer, the seven-time Tour de France winner's popularity has been on a downward trajectory since it peaked in 2006, and by last September—a few months after the release of Floyd Landis's accusations that Armstrong had doped—he was at average or below-average levels.

The question that will affect survivors like Garcia is whether Armstrong's travails might hurt Livestrong's ability to help the cancer community. The organization is small compared with philanthropic giants such as The American Cancer Society.

According to its own figures and reports by watchdogs such as Charity Navigator, Livestrong has raised more than $390 million in its 14-year lifetime, including $48 million collected from 215,000 donors around the world last year. More than 81 percent of the total income has been invested directly in cancer programs, initiatives and advocacy efforts, which earns the foundation a three-star rating (out of four) by Charity Navigator.

Craig Bida, executive vice president at Cone, a cause-branding agency that has developed campaigns for the American Heart Association and other nonprofits, predicts Livestrong will withstand any takedown Armstrong faces.

"One difference with Livestrong is that Armstrong has leveraged grassroots support," Bida says. "People participate in the rides and believe in the cause. This has become a movement. And Armstrong is a symbol for survivorship."

Jim Andrews, a senior vice president for IEG, a firm that advises corporations on sponsorships, says that if the investigation proceeds, Armstrong's sponsorship deals with brands such as Nike, RadioShack, Nissan, Oakley, Giro and Trek will suffer while his ties to Livestrong might not.

"You may not want to be associated with the individual," says Andrews, "but if you stop supporting the foundation, you may have a backlash. You may be seen as punishing cancer survivors and others who are helping them."

That said, Andrews thinks the specter of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) creates bigger problems than those faced by troubled celebrities like Tiger Woods.

"In Woods's case, the brand image that companies were tying into was all about his performance on the golf course and they could separate themselves from his personal behavior," says Andrews. "But if the athletic performance itself is tainted, you don't have a way to excuse it."

Ken Berger, CEO of Charity Navigator, agrees: "The most precious commodity any foundation has is public trust. Once you damage that trust, all bets could be off."

Not surprisingly, Livestrong CEO Doug Ulman, a cancer survivor himself, sees the scandal as little more than a sad distraction from a noble cause, and he sees no need for a formal distancing from Armstrong.

"This organization has never been stronger in terms of fulfilling our mission and the support that we receive from literally millions of people," he says. "We are trying to tackle a global problem, the number one cause of death around the world.

"And so the investigation unfortunately has become a distraction from our mission. We are literally, positively changing lives every day and we have so much more to do and to be pulled away and distracted even for 10 minutes is frustrating."

And what does Armstrong himself think? In an interview with Bicycling, which was granted on the condition we not question him directly about the investigation or PEDs, he insisted that Livestrong—and his role with the organization—would survive.

"If people think that I am going to be distracted or we are going to be sidetracked from our mission, they are sorely mistaken," he said. "The last thing that I am is a quitter.

"So I would reiterate to anybody in the cycling community who wants to question my commitment or the passion of this organization, they are making a big mistake."

Asked whether he envisioned a time when he might not be involved with Livestrong, the seven-time Tour de France winner said: "That's like asking what's my association going to be like with my kids in five or 10 years. It goes without saying that I am committed to the foundation, but even bigger than that, committed to the larger fight against cancer.

"We work very closely with the American Cancer Society, and, believe it or not, the FDA. We are all a team in this fight and my commitment is full-time now. I am committed for as long as I need to be, and it's not going to go away in a month or a year."